ANALYSIS
The BJP leaders’ promises of providing a stable and corruption-free government have been blown to smithereens as the state has seen three chief ministers — BS Yeddyurappa, DV Sadananda Gowda and Shettar — in the last four years.
For the BJP, Narendra Modi’s hat trick in Gujarat has changed the dynamics of choosing its prime ministerial candidate. But the BJP’s resounding victory in Gujarat is unlikely to lift the fortunes of the party in Karnataka, where it is gearing up to face assembly elections within five months.
Though BJP workers in the state had some reason to celebrate after a long time and state party leaders, including chief minister Jagadish Shettar, interpreted the victory as a mandate for “good governance and developmental politics”, the ground realities provide no cause for rejoicing.
Modi’s victory is being seen as a victory of a strong leader and not of the party. It is a mandate for providing stable government for the past one decade, his accent on the state’s development, providing a relatively clean governance sans any major scams, his political acumen in whipping up the sentiments of Gujarati pride while countering the Congress, and the lack of any credible strong leader in the opposition to pose a serious challenge.
The beleaguered BJP leadership in the state stands nowhere near him in any of the above aspects. The BJP leaders’ promises of providing a stable and corruption-free government have been blown to smithereens as the state has seen three chief ministers — BS Yeddyurappa, DV Sadananda Gowda and Shettar — in the last four years.
The taint of corruption has made a long list of ministers — including Yeddyurappa — have an experience of a stay in jail. The infighting has taken a heavy toll on development works, with many ministers in the Shettar government spending more time in breakfast and dinner politics with their political master, Yeddyurappa, than in reaching out to the people suffering due to a severe drought or in speeding up the implementation of development projects.
The less said the better about projecting a strong leader as the chief ministerial candidate, since the BJP, which is in total chaos, has started mouthing the concept of ‘collective leadership’ in the absence of any real alternative to Yeddyurappa.
However, it is not just the BJP which is trying to raise its sagging morale from Modi’s victory. Yeddyurappa sees himself as the Modi of Karnataka and the Gujarat verdict has boosted his confidence. “A political party can command the people’s faith only if it has a strong, credible leader,” he told DNA. “In Gujarat, it is the victory of Modi and not the BJP. It is a victory for Modi’s development agenda. I see the results as a positive sign for the KJP in the next assembly elections.”
Mentioning the long list of welfare programmes he had launched as chief minister and that there is no leader in the BJP who can match him in stature, Yeddyurappa argued that the Gujarat verdict has boosted his confidence that the KJP will do well in the next elections.
With the BJP leadership discredited and in disarray, and the KJP poised to make inroads into the BJP’s voter base, the opposition Congress has every reason to fancy its chances of returning to power after a hiatus of eight years.
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